Al-Shabaab Islamists abandon their last stronghold of Kismayu

Al-Shabaab Islamists have abandoned the port city of Kismayu as residents confirmed their withdrawal from what has been their last stronghold.

For the past three years the Al-Qaeda-allied militant group has controlled the main commercial centre in Jubaland, a vast region next to Kenya and 500 kilometres south of the capital Mogadishu.

"The military command of Shabab mujahideen ordered a tactical retreat at midnight," Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told news agency AFP.

The group through its Twitter handle HSM Press Office said that it had shut office.

"Last night, after more than 5 years the Islamic administration in Kismayo closed its offices," the group said.

A resident who sought anonymity said the militants had withdrawn from key institutions.

Mali prepares for war despite cautious neighbours

Mali's rulers are preparing for war to free the north from armed Islamist groups: this was the message from Bamako after a UN meeting, despite the reservations of some of its neighbours to an international taskforce.
"We felt a commitment from the international community at our side, a solidarity with Mali" a source close to President Dioncounda Traore told news agency AFP on Thursday.

He was speaking after a meeting Wednesday in New York, on the sidelines of the General Assembly, which was devoted to discussion of the Sahel crisis.

Mali's authorities knew that neighbours Algeria were trying to make common cause with Mauritania and Niger to oppose the deployment of foreign forces in Mali, said the source.

"But Paris will do all it can to
bring about the convening of the Security Council and a resolution authorising intervention," the official source added.

In Bamako, "people don't ask 'When is the war going to begin?' but 'How do we set up all the conditions necessary to do it?' For us, the intervention isn't far off, it is being prepared," the source concluded.

China’s arms exports flooding sub-Saharan Africa

UNITED NATIONS — China’s arms exports have surged over the past decade, flooding sub-Saharan Africa with a new source of cheap assault rifles and ammunition and exposing Beijing to international scrutiny as its lethal wares wind up in conflict zones in violation of U.N. sanctions.

Weapons from China have surfaced in a string of U.N. investigations in war zones stretching from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Ivory Coast, Somalia and Sudan. China is by no means alone in supplying the arms that help fuel African conflicts, and there is no proof that China or its arms exporters have intentionally violated U.N. embargoes in any of those countries.

South Africa Universities Rank in Top Seven Hundred

In all sub-Saharan Africa, only South Africa contributes universities to the top seven hundred worldwide.   In a recent report published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a leading consulting firm on higher education and careers information, the University of Cape Town (UCT) ranks 154 out of seven hundred universities. The University of the Witswaterand (Wits) ranks 364. Also within the top seven hundred–but low down–are the universities of Stellenbosh, Pretoria, and KwaZulu-Natal.  Number one is MIT, followed by the University of Cambridge.  Yale is number seven and Caltech number ten.  The University of Virginia is 123.  Just before UCT at 153 is L’Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and just after it at 155, the University of California at Irvine.

HIV and AIDS

.AIDS is one of the largest and most complex threats to human health the world has ever known. Great stigma compounds already tragic physical consequences. And in the developing world, poverty itself is both a cause and an effect of a pandemic that is devastating the physical, social and economic health of entire regions.

People around the world continue to suffer and die from this disease, which often robs them of family, social networks and ways to make a living. Young women bear the greatest risk of infection and burden of caring for the ill. But many people have found ways to live with dignity despite their HIV-status, and CRS works to replicate that success.
In 25 years, HIV has infected more than 65 million people. The majority of those suffering live in Africa, but the pandemic is quickly spreading in many countries throughout Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. By 2010, it is estimated that 80 million people will be infected and 25 million children will have been orphaned. HIV and AIDS disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable, and limited resources often prevent poor communities from supporting the millions who suffer.

SUB-SAHARA AFRICAN SOCIAL UPRISINGS

SUB-SAHARA AFRICAN SOCIAL UPRISINGS

Three African countries, Nigeria the most populous African nation with more than 156 million, Uganda with 35 million, and Burkina Faso with 17 million people are experiencing sociopolitical unrest that could explode into a situation similar to what has been taking place in Muslim countries. Although Africans south of the Sahara are aware of what has been happening in the Muslim north, the causes of social unrest in each country are unique to its conditions, no matter how inspired they may feel from Muslim rebels.

Opinion: Is oil-rich Angola a development success?

By Arne Wiig and Ivar Kolstad, Special to CNN

updated 10:32 AM EDT, Thu August 30, 2012

Angola has embarked on a major reconstruction program following the end of a 27-year vicious civil war in 2002. The oil-rich country holds general elections Friday.

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Angola's construction boom

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Oil-rich Angola is holding its second peacetime elections on Friday
• The country has experienced strong growth in the years after the end of its civil war
• Resource-rich countries with little political accountability have trouble converting resources into development
• Business profitability among the poor is constrained by lack of education and health services

Editor's note: Arne Wiig is a Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and coordinator for its research cluster "Poverty Dynamics. He has undertaken long−term fieldwork in Angola, Namibia and Bangladesh. Ivar Kolstad is Research Director at CMI, focusing on poverty dynamics, natural resources and development and corporate social responsibility.

(CNN) -- Ten years after the end of its civil war, Angola, which is heading to the polls Friday, has been transformed into a regional African power with a strong economy, but poverty is still widespread.

Angola experienced double digit growth in GDP annually in the period 2002-2008. In the last five of these years, average annual growth was at 17%, which more than doubled the size of the economy. The country is the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, and the third biggest economy, after South Africa and Nigeria.